Ch J Kathleen (“TBS = The Big Shillelagh”) Kerrigan has been wielding a big “DENIED” stamp lately as the boondockery conservation easements seek the Hewitt refuge. But Judge Albert G (“Scholar Al”) Lauber is nowise loath to join in.

Today, the target is Long Leaf Property Holdings, LLC, Long Leaf Manager, LLC, Tax Matters Partner, Docket No. 11982-16, filed 9/13/22.

The Longleafs are aiming at the two-week-old order I blogged on 8/31/22, in my blogpost “Line Up And Wait.”

The Longleafs get the “DENIED” stamp.

Reminds me of the flailing datestampers at the Glasshouse.

A correspondent asks when will we get to the real issue: valuation.

I can only quote Judge Holmes’ dissent in Oakbrook: “Today we uphold a regulation that will invalidate who knows how many other conservation-easement deductions, and will almost certainly lead to appeals in multiple circuits. If the Commissioner continues to seek gross-misvaluation penalties, we will also have to figure out in a great many cases how to determine which portion of an underpayment is attributable to a valuation misstatement and which is due to a failure of the conservation easement altogether, when it might justly be said to be attributable to both. See PBBM-Rose Hill, 900 F.3d at 214.

“I fear that our efforts to clear cut and brush hog our way out of the volume of conservation-easement cases we have to deal with has left us a field far stumpier than when we began.”